Fear of invasion of Ukraine

Dusseldorf The markets in the USA are switching to fear mode: On Wall Street, the leading index Dow Jones lost 1.4 percent on Friday, the market-wide S&P 500 1.5 percent and the Nasdaq technology index 2.5 percent. The trigger for the losses is a possible imminent invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine.

Investors are withdrawing from the stock markets, which had previously been slightly up. Instead, asset classes that are considered safe havens are in demand: the higher demand for ten-year US government bonds pushed their yields back below the level of two percent by seven basis points. Only on Thursday did the yield rise above the two percent mark for the first time in two and a half years in view of the high US inflation and the interest rate increases that will probably follow.